GOINGDEEP Adventure and intrigue fro around the league

By SEAN BRENNAN

|NEW YORK DAILY NEWS|

Oct 27, 2003 | 12:00 AM

MIXED EMOTIONS Did you notice who's all alone in second place in the AFC North? Before you gag on your Dunkin' Donuts, let us be the first to point out that our Bengals are the sole owners of the silver medal in the AFC North, trailing the Ravens (who we crushed last week, by the way) by a mere one game after yesterday's 27-24 win over Seattle. Corey Dillon gets in a car accident on his way to the game? Not a problem. Rudi Johnson fills in admirably with 101 rushing yards and a touchdown. Chad Johnson logs 84 receiving yards and a score and Jon Kitna (yes we have sold our souls to Satan) looks positively Roman Gabriel-esque, throwing for 240 yards, two scores and nary an interception. We rally from a 24-17 hole late in the third quarter, we're now 2-0 coming out of the bye week and we're suddenly in the playoff hunt. For that we say to coach Marvin Lewis: Damn you! With a 3-4 record, you have singlehandedly taken much of the luster off our deeply anticipated Going Deep Bowl I next week when the Bengals will face the woeful Cardinals. Lewis has done exactly what we hoped he wouldn't. He's made the Bengals better. No longer are they an easy mark for the rest of the league. No longer can we laugh at the Bungals' Sunday afternoon exploits. In fact, no longer are they our Bungals. We had hoped/dreamed/ prayed Cincy would hire Marty Mornhinweg as coach, for he surely would have kept our string of futility alive and kicking. But no. We get Lewis. We knew Lewis was trouble. And we were right. REALITY CHECK Dane Looker. Darnerien McCants. Eric Parker. William Henderson. Just a few names you may have never heard of, except maybe you NFL diehards. But what they all have in common is that they each have more touchdown grabs this season than the hated Keyshawn Johnson. Johnson, who had one grab yesterday - a 7-yard TD catch in the Bucs' win over Dallas - said "I'm not considered one of the best in the league for nothing," in an interview prior to yesterday's game. One of the best? His TD catch now gives him two on the season. While he still trails the above-mentioned luminaries, he has managed to pull even with the likes of Bryan Gilmore, Jim Kleinsasser, Ernie Conwell and teammate Joe Jurevicius, who has missed the past several games with an injury. Me-Shawn one of the best? Not quite. But he's well on his way to achieving mediocrity. NO MAN'S AN ISLAND OK, pop quiz time. Itula Mili. Is it A.) An island paradise off the coast of Madagascar, B.) the name of the virus Jack Bauer must eliminate on the next episode of "24," C.) a condition brought on by the lack of green leafy vegetables in your diet, D.) a former member of Milli Vanilli, or E.) a Seahawks tight end. We thought it was the vegetable one, but it turns out Mili was a major player for the Seahawks yesterday in their upset loss to our (for now) Bengals. Mili caught a career-high two TD passes (take that, Keyshawn) on catches of 46 and 6 yards. Prior to yesterday, Mili had eight other scores in his career, with six of them coming on 1-yard catches. ROAD WORRY-ERS Gary Moeller was the coach. Charlie Batch was the quarterback. And it was a month after George Bush went into OT to defeat Al Gore after the whole dangling chad business in Florida. Dec. 17, 2000 was also the last time the Detroit Lions managed a win on the road. That's 19 straight games going into yesterday when the Lions visited equally inept Chicago. Now thanks to two INTs by Joey Harrington and a Lions defense that let guys named Justin Gage and Brock Forsey score TDs, the streak is now 20 straight. And there's no help in sight. Detroit has a pair of November roadies at Seattle and Minnesota followed by two December games at Kansas City and Carolina. By our calculations, the streak should be 24 and counting by the end of the season. PROGRAM NOTE Just a reminder. Going Deep Bowl I kicks off Sunday at 4 p.

m. with the Bengals at the Cardinals. But with the Bengals seemingly improving way more than we'd like, we may be forced to hold a second Going Deep Bowl on Dec. 7 when the revolting Lions host the dreadful Chargers. Damn you, Marvin Lewis. MONDAY NIGHT MATCHUP. Dolphins vs. Chargers (9 p.

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7) It's bad enough that the one-win Chargers are even on Monday Night Football. Now, the game is not being played in San Diego, as the deadly wildfires in California have forced the NFL to move to game to Tempe, Ariz. Even worse for the Chargers, they were 3-point underdogs at home, and now they are 6-point dogs. We figure there will be so many empty seats at the game, it will look like an Arizona Cards home game. So once again we're forced to scour the TV Guide in search of some suitable alternative programming, and we're not disappointed. One of the movie channels is airing the "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

" We are so there, girlfriends. PAINKILLERS. Denver linebacker John Mobley sustained the day's most severe injury when he collided with teammate Kelly Herndon on a tackle and suffered a bruised spinal cord. After 10 minutes, Mobley was carted off the field and was said to have all the feeling in his arms and legs. X-rays were negative but Mobley was expected to stay overnight for observation in an area hospital. ... Tennessee CB Andre Woolfolk suffered what Titans' coach Jeff Fisher called a "severe" ankle sprain. DE Jevon Kearse also sprained his ankle in the Titans' win. SPITTIN' IMAGE. Bill Cowher, known to get in his players' faces and spew, so to speak, isn't happy during yesterday's loss. Pittsburgh falls into last place, meaning Cowher will be on the rampage this week and his players better get their umbrellas ready. DON'T BET ON IT. You're convinced after last week's 20-point loss to Tennessee that the Panthers are about to tumble back to earth, and playing in New Orleans is the perfect place to continue their free-fall. So you give the two points and sit back to watch The Deuce McAllister Show. The show is not looking so good after Stephen Davis' TD run with 3:45 to play turns a 17-13 Saints lead into a 20-17 Carolina advantage. But John Carney saves your bacon with a 42-yard field goal with :36 to play and you sweat out the OT coin flip. It's Saints. There is a Heaven. Go do your stuff Deuce. And he does, getting the Saints all the way to the Panthers 37. Just shy of Carney's range. But we get no closer because the Deuce McAllister Show also includes a colossal fumble on fourth-and-one, with Carolina recovering. Shortly after, the Panthers' embark on a 50-yard drive - with Davis accounting for 33 on one run - before John Kasay drills his third field goal of the game and you, my friend, have inaccurately predicted the Panthers downfall. Nice going. HEROES. It wasn't quite vintage Kurt Warner-Marshall Faulk-Isaac Bruce, but the the trio of Marc Bulger, Arlen Harris and Torry Holt proved far more than the Steelers could deal with. Bulger passed for 375 yards and a score (say good-bye forever to your starting job, Kurt), Harris scored three times and Holt hauled in seven catches for 174 yards and a score in St. Loo's win. ... Stephen Davis, the best free agent pickup of the year, rushed for 178 yards and a score in the Panthers' OT win vs. New Orleans. ... Ty Law picked off Kelly Holcomb in the waning seconds to secure the Pats' 9-3 win over Cleveland in a game that was far too painful to watch. ... Peyton Manning tossed three TDs in the Colts win vs. Houston. ... Marcel Shipp helped key the Cardinals' upset of the Niners with 165 yards on 35 carries. ... Jamal Lewis' 174 yards and a score kept the Ravens ahead of the Bengals in the AFC North. ZEROES. If it's true bad things happen in threes, look no further than Byron Leftwich, Tommy Maddox and Matt Hasselbeck. Each quarterback threw three interceptions and - surprise -each lost yesterday. Hasselbeck did manage to throw three TDs.. ... The tandem of Kelly Holcomb and Tim Couch combined for 155 yards, no TDs and one INT in the Browns' loss. Time to pick one and stick with him. ... And Denver's Danny Kanell. In a word: Yuck. Kanell threw for just 114 yards and two INTs in the Broncos' loss.